Evaluating the UK's software ecosystem to explore more effective ways of supporting its maintenance and development

Software is critical to research and innovation: it is crucial to gain understanding of such ‘hidden’ building blocks that underpin our digital infrastructure. In this poster, UKRI, the Software Sustainability Institute, OpenUK and Invest in Open discuss their work exploring this fundamental infrastructure.

A 2016 report ‘Roads and Bridges’: the unseen labor behind our Digital Infrastructure’ (Nadia Eghbal) states that ‘Free, publicly available source code is the infrastructure on which all of digital society relies’. With the rise of AI, the recognition of the impact of data-led initiatives, and increasing risks around cybersecurity, we must understand the ‘hidden’ building blocks that underpin our digital infrastructure. The software landscape is diverse and complex, due to a range of funding and licensing models, and often maintained only due to the goodwill of developers. Should we rethink how we support this important infrastructure?

ADORE.software: the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability states “The crucial role of software in research is becoming increasingly apparent, as is the urgent need to sustain it and to invest in the people who develop and maintain it. Research software sustainability is vitally important for the reproducibility of research outcomes and has a direct bearing on the process of research, including the efficient use of financial and human resources.”

In 2024 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) commissioned projects to better understand the nature of the software that underpins research and innovation. The evaluation included assessment of how software is funded, licensing regimes, areas of risk, opportunities to support open ecosystems, and a first step to map the software that underpins UKRI’s investments. Organisations such as Invest in Open and OpenUK are also working to research and mobilise funding and strategies to bolster the underlying systems that open research depends on.

This poster was presented at MetaScience 2025, London.